28th Suday Ordinary Time – Year C
Fr. Mark Gatto
Preached: October 12, 2025
Thank you. It sounds so simple, but that is the foundation and the root of any true spiritual life.
Thank you. It is the heart of any real relationship with God.
Thank you. Say those words and feel those words in your heart.
Thank you. Live those words.
Who needs to hear you say thank you? Who needs you to show them that you are grateful? Are we like the 9 lepers who never returned to give thanks?
In our First Reading, the story of the healing of Naaman, it was this foreigner who was truly grateful and so was right with God. In the Gospel, the only leper to return to give thanks was the Samaritan, seen as heretics separated from the true God. But, anyone who is truly grateful in their heart, and comes before God with a thankful heart, and who lives in a spirit of gratitude, is someone who is already in communion with God.
Each of the 10 lepers had enough faith to go to Jesus to ask for healing and were healed. But, only the one who returned with thankfulness experienced full human healing and salvation.
Sometimes we miss out on the blessings all around us. We are too busy, too distracted, too worried about so many things. One of the gifts of the Camino walk I recently did was to spend several hours just walking. No cell phone to look at. Through woods, through rural villages, past vineyards. I noticed so many things that I just ignore in my life here at times.
We call the Mass, the Eucharist. It is Greek for Thanksgiving. The Mass is an act of thanksgiving for each of us and for the church. Someone recently said to me that he goes to Mass every week. He does not expect to get anything out of it. He simply gives this time to God.
Now and then something strikes me. We come to Mass not to get something out of it, we come here
like that one leper who returned. We come to be at the feet of Jesus and give thanks.
Pope Francis once was speaking with a group of married couples and told them that there are 3 phrases that they should use often in marriage. May I, Sorry and Thanks. Any healthy marriage requires two people who often express thanks to each other and as a couple give thanks to God.
If you were a Vocation Director and was interviewing a man thinking about the priesthood, what would you look for? For me, the first thing I look at, is this man a person of gratitude? Do they desire to serve as a priest because they are full of gratitude and want to give back?
Years ago, a friend of mine had given birth to her first child. She would say that she was not religious at all and not even sure if she believed in God. But, she said, that when she looked down at this new baby, she found herself saying thanks, not sure to whom. Without knowing it she was in communion with God.
Thank you, it is that simple. When gratitude is in your heart, you will be okay. In fact, the great mystic, Meister Eckhart, in the Middle Ages, would say, “If the only prayer you say in your life is ‘thank you,’ that would be enough.”
